Ellen Noble to 'take a step back' from racing to focus on her health

Ellen Noble has decided to take time away from racing as she looks to focus on her physical and mental health.

In an emotional video on her Instagram page, the pro mountain bike and cyclocross racer described the decision as “simultaneously devastating and euphoric.” She also talked about the illness and injuries that have disrupted her career in recent years, and the mental toll that it has taken on her.

Noble was keen to impress that this would just be a pause on her career and the 26-year-old fully intends to be back as soon as her health picks up.

“It’s been hard to find the words and really speak them out loud but I guess I should get right into it. I am taking a step back from professional bike racing. Not forever, but for right now. It’s hard to say out loud but I know that for me a step back is the only way forward,” Noble said.

Also read: Introducing Noble Racing, Ellen Noble’s new team and mentorship program

With a lot of hurdles to overcome during the last three years, Noble said she had been driven by the desire to get back to racing and hadn’t taken the time to consider the impact each setback had on her.

“I feel that I’ve lost a lot. I let go of a lot; my Olympic dreams, I let go of my competitive edge. In a lot of ways, I felt that I had lost my career. When you’re a professional athlete, your career is your whole life,” Noble said.

“I feel that I’ve lost so much but I feel that I’ve gained so much more than I ever thought possible. I’m so grateful for the last 20 years of my life that I’ve dedicated to bike racing,” she said. “I’ve watched some of my wildest dreams come true.

“I went toe to toe with some of the best racers in the world and, most importantly, I met the most incredible people through it all. The connections, friendships, lessons, and love I found off the racecourse through bike racing is more than I can ever put into words. That’s why I’m not saying goodbye forever.”

Feeling empty

Noble’s difficulties began toward the end of 2018 while enjoying some of the best form she’d ever had. It wasn’t until the end of 2019 that she would be diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an auto-immune disease that attacks your thyroid, after several months of chasing a diagnosis.

“The past three years have been incredibly hard. Around this time in 2018, I was having the best season of my career when I began to feel off. It seems as though one day I just lost my spark,” she said. “My drive to win was gone, my energy was gone, my mood had shifted, and I watched my body change right before my own eyes.

It was a huge blow, physically and mentally, for Noble to deal with and she struggled with her recovery. Having been excited for her return to racing, she dreaded it when the time came again in the fall.

She began her sabbatical on October 1 after contesting some cyclocross races in September.

“When I broke my back, I also shattered my health,” she said. “In my recovery, I dealt with new symptoms that I’d never dealt with before, constant severe bloating, rashes on my arms and eyes, exhaustion like I’d never felt before, physical pain and emotional volatility while riding my bike, nausea, pelvic pain, and depression. I had never felt so unwell in my entire life.